Neil Diamond is a pretty upbeat guy — or at least as upbeat as can be expected from a man who made his claim to fame writing "Solitary Man." His upbeatness cost him, not in dollars but in cred, as far more tortured souls were cast in bronze and plaster as the voices of their respective generations. Diamond — a one-time Brill Building songsmith — and his never-ending stream of hits had to make do with the platinum plaques, sold-out arenas, and fanatical following, all while the myth of '60s, '70s, and '80s rock was written into stone sans Neil. Luckily, recent decades have seen music fans re-evaluating the legacy of one of America's greatest bards — even if said re-eval was tentative at first, and cloaked in ironic appreciation. Diamond never embraced trends or cultural moments, erring in favor of timeless over timely. Which means that '60s tunes like "Cherry, Cherry," '70s smashes like "Forever In Blue Jeans," and late-'00s killers like the fist-in-the-air "Hell Yeah" all sound of one piece, a flowing continuum from a solitary voice that could find you way in the back of an arena and make you think the song was sung just to you. If by some strange fuck-up in your album purchasing history you don't have any Neil taking up real estate on your CD shelf, correct that error with this disc.

Interview: Keith Lockhart "There's always some set of events, positive or negative, that color the lens that people see the Fourth of July through."

Trans Am | What Day Is It Tonight? Trans Am Live, 1993 - 2008 Trans Am are distillers of guilty pleasures, mixing fat AOR riffs with sleazy electronic accents and a propulsive attitude typically reserved for arcade soundtracks. What Day Is It Tonight? covers the DC-area band’s 20-year history with high-quality, high-energy live cuts taken from their many tours.

Various Artists | Casual Victim Pile: Austin 2010 The notion that regional musical flavors exist independently in American cities is quickly becoming an archaic truism, seeing as how the world really is a stage these days, at least in the digital sense.

Avi Buffalo | Avi Buffalo Look, I get it: the last thing we need right now is yet another band who can be described as “sun-baked,” “reverb-soaked,” or even just “psychedelic.” But Avi Buffalo (I know! An animal name to boot!) are worth your attention for a few reasons.

Review: Brandon Flowers | Flamingo Brandon Flowers has gone on record saying he brought the songs on Flamingo to his fellow bandmates for the next Killers album and was given the brush-off.

THE STROKES | COMEDOWN MACHINE | March 18, 2013 The Strokes burst out in a post-9/11 musical world with a sound that was compact and airtight, melodies coiled frictionlessly in beats and fuzzed vocals.

GLISS | LANGSOM DANS | February 01, 2013 If rock and roll is three chords and the truth, then the mutant genre offspring shoegaze can be summed up as one chord, three fuzzboxes, and a sullen, muttered bleat.